Knowingly

The former Dragon’s Den judge Douglas Richard has been found not guilty of child sex charges.

The 57-year-old, who once advised Prime Minister David Cameron, engaged in “sexy chat” with a 13-year-old after meeting her on a ‘sugar daddy’ website and went on to act out his fantasies when she travelled from her home in Norwich to meet him in London.

However, the American millionaire claimed he believed she was an experienced 17-year-old and told jurors he would never “knowingly” have sex with a child.

5 Responses to “Knowingly”

Oh, really? Really He thought a thirteen year old girl was seventeen? No. He didn’t care how old she was. He probably never even thought about it. he found her available, he wanted to enjoy himself and the level of his privilege is such that he never thought twice about what he should or should not do.

The truly shameful thing is that a jury has condoned his privilege. He will walk free secure in the knowledge he has done nothing wrong, a belief supported by the legal system.

The sexual exploitation of the very young seems to have been an entrenched institution in the UK. It seems that the Jimmy Savile scandal has just begun to open the can of worms. Rather the way the Boston Globe finally forced awareness of Catholic pedophilia onto the national consciousness.

But think back a bit. Profumo, Peter Rachman, etc.? Christine Keeler, Mandy Rice-Davies, Lynn Barber etc. were all barely into their teens when they were splashed with scandal. That these were school-age girls didn’t even seem to register at the time.

That men with money and power would exploit children seems to have been accepted as normal.

Former Swedish Minister of Justice Lennart Geijer was deeply involved in teenage prostitution under the auspices of the infamous Madam Doris (40 years ago!) and was aggressively defended by then PM Palme. The scandal exploded when a reporter phoned up a junior civil servant, Leif GW Persson, who was too unconnected to understand how to blatantly lie and thus accidentally confirmed the rumour. It cost him his job under Palme’s insidious attack, calling him i.a. “a sewer rat with a naked tail”, but he later got rich on thinly disguised crime novels, a professorship in Criminology and a long-running series of TV shows well into his retirement age.

One of these persons is today a very popular figure, and still alive. IMHO this serves them all right, at least in this regard.

“An experienced 17-year old”, ah, okay, well then it would have been all right for a 57 year old millionaire. Must send him the contact details of my daughter, how happy we all will be with a sugar daddy who appeared on the Dragon’s Den super show.

My preferred punishment: slowly bleed his money out by progressingly higher taxation and then when he sees nobody is interested in him, dress him up as Assad and throw him into a LIbanese refugee camp.

Not literally of course, after all I’m not an amoral millionaire, but the taxation part wouldn’t be a bad idea – when combined with a suitable jail sentence.